OT: new PC catch-22

Start with new (6-month old), bleeding edge stuff: motherboard, Intel
D CPU, 80Gbyte hard drive, Sony DVD R/W, 500W supply, WinXP Pro.
Major problems:
1) "Intel uCode error...press F1 to continue" no boot from the WinXP CD.
2) Update BIOS to latest available (beta): the uCode error goes away; no
boot.
3) Go into the BIOS setup, first screen: *nothing* recognized; Primary
Master, Primary Slave,Seconsdary Master and Secondary Slave all have the
same message, to the effect "nothing available".

But, in booting up, there is a bit of screen fiddling, and the
installed hard drive and DVD drive are listed as present.
The DVD light has a very short blink after that, but the CD is not
accessed.

Now, the interesting part: plop in a PartitionMagic (bootable) CD,
and that works!
Understand, the PartitionMagic CD is old, way before Micro$uck
thought of XP (2002).

Seems to me that M$ has teamed with the BIOS and board makers to make
sure that one cannot *install* WinXp from scratch on these new computers.

But..if you happen to have a computer like that with WinXP installed,
the WinXP is readable and can be used for updates, etc.

So....
How in the h*ll does one start from scratch?

 

It's got nothing to do with MS if you're got a problem at that pioint.

Duff mobo if you ask me.

Graham

 

On the other hand ... bought this motherboard a few months ago. Found I
needed a new case as PCB mounting holes are now different.
Still wouldn't work. Discover I needed to buy a 'new style' PSU with the
extra power connector thingy. Then a 2 day waste of my life finding out it
wouldn't run windows98. Discover it was designed for the damnable windows
XP.
So, hardware had been designed for a particular micro (AMD) and a particular
microshite OS. Nowhere were these details stated. The arrogant bastards
assumption being that we're all non technical consumers, hence will buy and
use whatever package they choose to offer us.
Seems the only 'compatability' we are left with, is the ability to run ms
progs. Aren't monopolies just the thing!.
john

 

Looks like this is the year for Linux. I won't buy any new computers
unless they are guaranteed to run Linux with no problems. Also DOS

Regards,

Mike Monett

Antiviral, Antibacterial Silver Solution:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/index.htm
SPICE Analysis of Crystal Oscillators:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/spice/xtal/clapp.htm
Noise-Rejecting Wideband Sampler:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/add.automation/sampler/intro.htm

 

What I generally find is that the released linux kernel seems to be a
few months behind the "bleeding edge" of motherboard
chipsets. Although it always boots up OK, a motherboard-integrated
peripheral might not work. After a couple of months there is a new
kernel available and it too starts working. If you pick a motherboard
with a chipset that has been out a while, there is no problem. (And it
is likely cheaper and more stable).

I use dosemu under linux (to run some old IAR dos compilers), works
OK. In fact they seem much faster than under the "real" DOS, better
filesystem performance perhaps.

Then there are various virtualization systems such as xen, vmware etc.

 

Thanks for the good info, John. I'm already running Eagle on Suse
with excellent results, and starting to think it might be time to
convert everything else over to Linux.

How do you back up your system in case of hard disk failure? Is
there an equivalent to XCOPY32?

What I'm looking for is to have a backup drive that I can install as
Master and have it contain exactly what is on the original. The
advantage of XCOPY32 is it doesn't waste time copying files that
don't need updating, so the backup is very quick and you can afford
to do it several times per day.

Regards,

Mike Monett

Antiviral, Antibacterial Silver Solution:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/index.htm
SPICE Analysis of Crystal Oscillators:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/spice/xtal/clapp.htm
Noise-Rejecting Wideband Sampler:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/add.automation/sampler/intro.htm

 

Ahh, you make me laugh...

If you think that MS could legally get away with matching their OS to
a BIOS manufacturer then you are an idiot. IF you actaully think the
MS gives a shit about what PC there OS is installed on then you are
even more of an idiot.

Beware of the inferior CD ROM. I have seen problems where the CDROM
cant track out the the extreme edges of the CD, and depending on who
cut the MS CD's there may be issues.

Ring MS, and they will get you a new CD. Try that, if that fails then
either your MOBO or CDROM is fucked, or something in between.

Failing that,if you can live with it, download a <insert flavour here>
Linux distro and install that. Chances are if its a new PC then some
of the drivers wont exist, but they are never far away.

 

ah now wait..
There is a Utility the OEM guys use to write data in the FLASH portion
of the CMOS., it is checked by the boot disk which contains the restore
OEM Os on it. Not all use this scheme. updating the bios can destroy
this data in many cases.
Not sure if that is what's going on. i think a standard off the self
NON upgrade should do it in any case.

 

could also be operator error.

 

I was stunned when i saw that in the BIOS screen; figgured the BIOS
was not up to snuff, so that is why i got the latest from the MB maker;
even a newer beta version is better..but it was not good enough.

Still, why does it boot from an old CD circa 2002 and not a new M$ CD?

 

..and i have heard that complaint before; seems one must (somehow)
get an old MB to run old OSes.
Wait for "vista" where most users will be forced to toss their
hardware and get new hardware because the old hardware does not have all
of the "support" that "vista" *demands*.

 

The problem ther is that no reseller guarantees anything, and if the
pile of metal they sell you does not work, then you pay for return.
And they do not properly or fully test it and so it works for them
because the setup and conditions are totally different.
So you get back the same POS.

This is exactly what has happened with the setup i mentioned in the
query; *three* identical setups they were supposed tocheck, and they
only checked one and failed to follow instructions.
Of course they work using a hard drive with XP loaded; that was not
the problem!
Idiots!

 

1) I think i mentioned that the drive used was a recent (6 months old)
issue by Sony and it was a DVD read/write.
2) I had access to five sets of WinXP to work with, all straight from M$
no intervening reseller.
Hard to believe that M$ sells so many screwed up CDs.
3) I believe i mentioned that the original BIOS gave problems, and that
the *beta* update only solved one of them.
That update was only a week old at worst.
And the MB maker had a newer MB (about a week old) that was said to
work properly, but the seller would not do an exchange; the MB maker
only replaces MBs under a warantee basis and also will not exchange for
the newer MB.

And Linux will *not* support programs written for XP, programs that
are not available any other way and no equivalent(s).

 

Interesting..
*No* OEM OS..
I made a DOS boot floppy, added the downloaded FLASH utility and the
downloaded BIOS beta update; booted from the floppy and followed the
yellow brick road.
Are you saying that the utility may have messed something up in the BIOS?

 

Two different people, three different times, no communications as to
procedure used, and the *SAME* problem occured.
Methinks you are incorrect.

 

what i am saying is, people like DELL, Gateway etc.. at one time in the
past and i don't know if they still do it? Use to load the Flash on the
BIOS with additional info that their OEM restore CD would read on boot
up or, if you try the install directly to see if the proper ID was
in the Flash before it would let you install that OEM CD on the machine
other wise, you couldn't use that CD in any other PC.
Updating the Bios sometimes screwed this up.

What you should try to do is this, if stated that you were able to
create a boot able disk to install the bios update? Did you try to run
run a CD driver and run the set up program from the CD at that time?

 

Ahh.. Smell, E-Machines and HP were noted for that "proprietary"
stuff; the hard drives were also "wired" and replacing one would give
an unusable computer.
These were "white box" units assembled from components bought from
various sources (well, the box, video card, power supply, HD, DVD came
from a different source than the "bundled" MB, CPU and RAM.
I did think of trying a CD driver, but did not have the critical
parts of the MSCDEX drivers (since it was DOS).
I am pretty sure that would work.
Now i am 500 miles away from the site where these problems exist.

The CD driver scheme is an excellent idea, and i think i better
e-mail that support to the friend i tried to help; that would make
things much easier.

 

I use the original 20 GB from a Etower 733 MHz computer with windows
ME to test lots of motherboards, and has never refused to work. Each
restore CDROM, on the other hand, looks for a certain emachines bios. I
have collected a number of OEM restore disks for different brands and
models.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

I can't agree with that. I have run XP on machines from a 200 MHz
Pentium up to 2.4 GHz P4s. Also dos and windows 3.1 on athlon 1.1 GHz and
P4s. Also linux and lindows on same machines. (yes, too much free time)
Though newer stuff does not ususally come with drivers for dos and older
windows (95/98).

 

Actually, you are quite wrong. Vista works just as well on current
machines. The only thing is you cant run the new 'aero interface'
unless you have a video card with a shitload of ram. No one really
cares much because it is just marketing wank anyway.

However, if you try run it up on your old P500 with 128mb ram then
dont bother. Stick with win95 or linux.